Ex-Bear wants to make his big house bigger

Matt Forte, who played eight seasons with the Bears and now is with the New York Jets, wants to expand his 9,000-square-foot house in River North.

A lawyer for the running back filed an application this week for a zoning change that would allow Forte to add 1,137 square feet, or about 13 percent, to the house on Kingsbury Street.

Forte paid a little more than $4 million for the five-bedroom mansion in December 2014.

He played for the Bears from the 2008 through 2015 seasons and parted with the team in February 2016. The next month he signed with the Jets. Forte and his wife, Danielle, have two children.

The addition to the four-story house would push out the top three floors' north wall, at left in the photo, and would not change the building's footprint, according to documents submitted by the lawyer, Amy Degnan of Daley & Georges.

Each of the three floors now steps back from the one below. Drawings submitted with the application show that all three floors would add space, and the second and third floors would end at the same point, without the third stepping back.

In other words, the second through fourth floors will look more like their counterparts on the house next door, seen in this photo, which longtime Chicago radio personality Jonathon Brandmeier sold for $4.7 million in August 2015.

Forte's application does not say what the additional space would be used for, or what the cost of the addition would be. The application included a copy of a letter describing the plans that the Fortes' representatives sent out to all neighbors living within 250 feet of the property, as required with any zoning change application.

An amendment is needed because the home has the maximum square footage allowed under the current zoning. Degnan submitted the request for an ordinance approving the change to the City Council's committee on zoning, landmarks and building standards.

Degnan did not respond to a request for comment, and Christina Mason, the attorney at Kelley Drye & Warren in New York who represents the trust that bought the house in 2014, declined to comment. Forte could not be reached.